(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.
Short form: Dave.
Pet forms: Davy, Davey, Davie (mainly Scottish); Dai.
Cognates: Irish: Dáibhídh. Scottish Gaelic: Dàibhidh. Welsh: Dafydd, Dewi. German, Dutch: David. French: David. Spanish: David. Italian: Davide. Russian: David. Polish: Dawid. Czech: David. Finnish: Taavi. Hungarian: Dávid.
1. English: topographic name for someone who lived beside a stream, from northern Middle English bekke ‘stream’ (Old Norse bekkr).
2. English (of Norman origin): habitational name from any of various places in northern France, for example Bec Hellouin in Eure, named with Old Norman French bec ‘stream’, from the same Old Norse root as in 1.
3. English: probably a nickname for someone with a prominent nose, from Middle English beke ‘beak (of a bird)’ (Old French bec).
4. English: metonymic occupational name for a maker, seller, or user of mattocks or pickaxes, from Old English becca. In some cases the name may represent a survival of an Old English byname derived from this word.
5. German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name for a baker, a cognate of Baker, from (older) South German beck, West Yiddish bek. Some Jewish bearers of the name claim that it is an acronym of Hebrew benkedoshim ‘son of martyrs’, i.e. a name taken by one whose parents had been martyred for being Jews.
6. North German: topographic name for someone who lived by a stream, from Low German Beke ‘stream’. Compare the High German form Bach 1.
7. Scandinavian: habitational name for someone from a farmstead named Bekk, Bæk, or Bäck, or a topographic name for someone who lived by a stream.
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![[Image: Color-coded map of the United States showing name distribution by state.]](/map/David.Beck.US.gif)
